Olaf Breuning: Oh yes It is a garden!

Chisenhale Gallery is pleased to present a new commission from Olaf Breuning, his first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery.

Compulsive storytelling, fantasising and seamless shifting of time, place, product and character are all powerful parts of Breuning’s multifaceted practice.

Oh yes… it is a garden! is the first time Olaf Breuning has created a large scale sculptural installation in a gallery environment. This woodland landscape is populated by an array of raw wooden animals carved by chainsaw, then hand chiseled. These creatures, ranging from rabbits and chickens to crocodiles and cheetahs, have holes embedded in them, into which hundreds of large handmade candles in vividly alluring colours have been forcefully inserted. The wooden sculptures have been created in Grizedale Forest, in the Lake District, and the candles produced by Mexican traditional candle makers in Breuning's studio in New York City.

Breuning has transformed Chisenhale Gallery into a seductive environment alluding to creation myths and a lost paradise through which the gallery visitor is free to wander. Breuning's previous work includes elaborately staged photographs, installations, sculptures and videos. By inventively reframing the more seductive clichés of advertising, film and pop music he has created visually fascinating tableaux and compelling narrative scenes that now extend into a new dimension with his Chisenhale Gallery exhibition.

Olaf Breuning was born in 1970 in Schaffhausen, Switzerland and lives and works in Zurich and New York. Selected solo exhibitions include: Ars Futura Galerie, Zurich, Galerie Meyer & Kainer, Vienna, Association EDV, Toulouse, Metro Pictures, New York, Magasin-Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble, Museo Garillo Gil, Mexico City, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Strasbourg, Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, Galerie Arndt & Partner, Berlin, Swiss Institute, New York, Kunstverein Freiburg, Museum zu Allerheiligen; Kunstverein Schaffhausen, Centre d‘art contemporain, Geneva, Kunsthaus Glarus, Kunsthalle St.Gallen.

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Olaf Breuning: Oh yes... It is a garden!